EMAIL FROM A FRIEND

Connie is a total doppelganger ... we met online about five years ago when we were both sick as death with undiagnosed illnesses.

When I got sick I was making $92,000/yr. with a victorian home on an international waterway and a victorian commercial property on that same waterway. I had an antique shop and a career and friends and a boyfriend and ...

Connie was an award-winning landscape designer with great digs and big contacts.

I ... well you kow what happened to me. Finally realized I had pulled a deer tick out of my leg before I got sick and got treatment for Lyme Disease. Still, the IV antibiotics only did so much. Anger got me through the rest of the way. Made me push when I was afraid I'd have a heart attack ... made me say "I will not live like this."

Now I'm fine. So long as I keep pushing.

Connie ... they never really diagnosed her. She has researched and self-treated herself, with Sinatra Protocol and others. She watches her diet like a hawk.

I notice incredible cosmic similarities in our current lives and possibly past lives - strange parallels and cycles. She moved to the family farm to help care for her dying mother. Who is, of course thriving under her care. She brought something that was basically just acreage and old barns back into working order, raising geese for market. (One of those gourmet markets is the White House; Obama is a relative on his mother's side.)

To me the most amazing part is that Connie's mother BEAT her as a child. Treated her like shit. Put her through hell. Like me, her Grandmother was her salvation.

Connie is the only one of her siblings who would actually step up and care for the woman. And while her mother has dementia, she has the super-rare type where she is actually SWEETER for it. She has been a comfort to my friend. She manages to say the things Connie needs to hear when Connie needs to hear them.

In the world of karma, Connie deserves all good things this universe can offer.

Connie and I see the big picture in this world and "that one", past and present, now and future. So when I get an email like this, she blows me away.

"I thought I should check in on you now and see how you are dealing with the job situation etc.. You were one of three people who called me to tell me they'd lost their jobs. My friend Hanne lost hers when the paint store she works at closed and Teme's in hot water as well, with only her son and DIL working now, and her son worked for Circuit City- which also closed. Leaving her live-in DIL the only breadwinner. Fucking crazy.

My brother spent time letting employees go last weekend. My "Kentucky date" Don said his company stopped matching retirement contributions and took everyone back to a 35 hour work week. This is just horrible news to keep hearing from the outside world.

So. just checking in I guess.

The only good news from all this is that I can probably get someone to live here and work in exchange for food and shelter... the same thing my grandparents did in the depression at their farm.

Im still coughing. I sure would like to feel good again. I'm still so out of it that today I forgot to let the chickens out OR water and feed them. What the hell... I remembered only at 10 pm when I went to lock them in and realized they already were, from last night. Poor things! So, I gave them food and water for tomorrow morning in the coop with them.

The farm tour went well from last weekend, I dont know if I told you about that. But it was a lot of fun for everyone. And I had a chance to see everything thru their eyes. Making it all new and interesting again- not all about what still needs to get done.

I'll talk later - gotta get some sleep. Just let me know you are alright.

Connie"

I'm alright. And hearing from Connie always keeps things in perspective.

Friday the Thirteenth & Lyme Disease

"You've become a luxury we can no longer afford." This from my boss on Friday the thirteenth.

I hate cliches.

I'm a person who cringes when gay friends lisp, when lesbians wear sensible shoes, when my dogs stop to pee at fire hydrants and when I go completely blonde; like today when I popped a piece of gum in my mouth with the wrapper still on.

Yes, laid off on Friday the Thirteenth. I think that was three years from the day my cousin Robin (a nurse) found her boyfriend Kenny dead in bed, resplendent in his tropical fish panties.

Kenny was a gorgeous guy, absolutely gorgeous, with prematurely white hair. Kenny Rogers wishes he looked as good as this guy. They'd been together five or six years.

They'd had their gazillionth fight. Her last words to him were "fuck you."

Then the traditional three days passed and it was about time for him to call and admit what a worthless piece of shit he was and lie that he would never do that (whatever heinous act it was) again so long as he lived.

He didn't call - but friends did, asking if she'd seen him. Nobody had. Not for three days.

Robin - like me and my granddaughter - is a sensitive. She knew something was wrong and took her mother with her. The morning Robin found him, he was on his side, in the fetal position. At first they thought Kenny was asleep, then she saw the pooled blood on the lower side of his body. There was a melted popcicle on the sheets and half a glass of red wine on the nightstand.

And she would find later, an appointment book filled with notations of various doctors around town who were prescribing the Vicodin that he mixed with the alcohol that killed him. Newly retired from Ford, staying high was Kenny's new Job One.

He had lied to her, cheated on her with total whores and utterly humiliated her around town. I'd read his tarot cards. I remember looking him in the eye with both of us knowing without a doubt that he was all about Kenny and nobody else; he just was who he was.

And you know what? Despite all that, I loved him too.

I spent about four days with Robin, up to the funeral. We talked a lot. We cried, we laughed. I told her "you didn't have the strength to dump him, so God offed him."

She nodded. She knew. I didn't say it to be mean. I said it because Robin is the finest, kindest person I know and she deserves better. (At the funeral, Kenny's parents gave her the respect she'd never received in all her time with their son. The respect of a true partner. )

Friday the Thirteenth. Note to self - find a way to avoid those.

It has been a rocky ride since my thirteenth. I have highs where I know I'll be fine and lows where I wonder if I'll have to hook up with some moonstruck old boobophile and look at ear hair every night for the rest of my (or his) life.

Someone asked how I was doing and I said "well, I'm not reduced to giving blow jobs in the parking lot yet." If I can't manage a simple stick of gum ....

Yes, I already have freelance work. Yes I have feelers out there, more every day; but I am having the worst time focusing on the work at hand.

One nice thing did happen today. There are no accidents in life. At least for those of us who are paying attention.

Some months back I met a guy online who had a friend who was sick. And somehow we got to talking about it and I said "sounds like she has Lyme Disease." It seemed like a stretch ... she was bad off, in a wheelchair. There were other symptoms, all horrendous, life altering and confusing. Like mine, only far worse.

And my mother had already decided where my remains would be interred.

The sick woman called me and we talked. It sounded like Lyme to me.

I got this email today. Things like this make my two years of undiagnosed hell almost seem like they were worth it. At least I got to spare someone else years of misery:

Hi. Carolynn B here. We corresponded a couple months ago about lyme? Well I have seen Dr. Markowitz, gone through two 24 hour urine collections for analysis, supplied 18 vials of bloodwork (I don't think I have any more to spare!) and perhaps it isn't surprising, but BINGO! They've determined a lyme situation here. So next Thursday I go up to St. Joe's Pontiac to have an I.V. needle inserted, get back to Keego Harbor to an associate of Dr. Markowitz to show me how to give myself the weekly treatments.

I just can't thank you enough for having directed me. I'm indebted to Dan for connecting me to you FOR that direction. I'm getting decidedly emotional about this because FINALLY there's hope for reversal. I mean I'm looking at regaining my mobility! So if one looks at this "cosmically'', I was meant to have to wait a certain length of time for certain individuals to come into my life, you being among them.

And I suppose there have been certain lessons for me to learn too, like patience, perserverence, keeping a cheeky attitude and not having too many pity parties, and also seeing first hand the plight of many disabled and senior citizens. If I could figure out how to become an advocate for that issue I would.

But I just wanted to contact you and let you know the update and how instrumental you were. Thank you so much. I am so jazzed about this. 4-5 weeks is nothing compared to the results. And funny thing is, is that between conventional and alternative approaches, a common link/conclusion was found. Something in the brain, unaddressed previous virus causing havoc with mobility. And this will ultimately be like a birthday present for my son, as he's always been such a help and "Next time I see you I want to see you walking....". I can imagine going to visit him in the air force and NOT using a wheelchair! I can see in my mind's eye climbing the Akropolis in Greece, without using a wheelchair and the cage built for disabled. It was my one focus to do that, so I suppose I'd better follow through!

Thanks, Mick! I hope I'll be able to pass on the 'baton' of hope and encouragement to someone else.

Sincerely,
Carolynn B

I will go to bed tonight feeling blessed to have had a role in Carolynn's recovery. There's nothing more important than a life that has meaning for others.

As I see it.

Maybe it is all about grace under pressure. No, that's not me in the photo, I just empathize.

I'm not a guy and I don't smoke. I have less facial hair and my car is slightly cleaner.

I haven't been watching the news much. I trust the President to do the right thing. I know he never had all the answers, but I do have the sense that he will surround himself with the variety of people who DO have solid answers.

I have no desire to watch him make the sausage. I try not to worry about things I can't change. I just voted for the person I believe in.

Was talking to Good Randy last night about Michigan and Florida. He says there is no doubt in his mind that Florida will come back to financial health as the rest of the Baby Boomers start creaking and limping and hating the cold.

That's part of why I want to hang onto my condo like my life depended on it. Well, in a way it does. This is where I got my health back. The weather and health resources in this area have literally shaved 20 years off how I feel; especially the nearby yoga center (Health & Harmony on McGregor) that teaches the Iyengar method. It's giving me more strength with every passing month.

At 58 I am the most flexible and limber I've ever been. I am very close to what I was in high school, when I was doing balance beam and uneven parallel bars. Well, then I had more upper body strength and could easily do the splits, but now I'm more flexible. The masseuse at Health & Harmony said "wow, you're LOOSE."

The weight is coming off, more as the side-effect of an incredibly healthy lifestyle than actual INTENT. Well, it helps that I won't be able to afford to buy food for a while.

We talked about Michigan. Good Randy said it will come back in a year. I told him I went onto the GM website this past week expecting to find bold new plans for selling those vehicles they can't sell. And damned if I didn't see why nothing is selling. NOTHING has really changed. NOTHING since I was writing that shit for the car company websites YEARS AGO. That is a total shock.

Sure, there are large rebates and some zero interest for a time, but it's all for PEOPLE WITH STELLAR CREDIT. Who has stellar credit?

Good Randy says it all has to start with the banks getting their act together.

This country's manufacturers need to borrow a page from Hyundai and their offer to TAKE THE CAR BACK for people who lose their jobs. That's an expression of faith in themselves. That makes me want to buy a Hyundai. EXCEPT I WANT TO BUY AMERICAN. AND I WANT TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT!

If enough people with jobs (92% of the population?) have a guarantee like that, more people will BUY the cars and auto workers will KEEP their jobs and the country will start to STABILIZE.

People will be less afraid to spend.

I'm feeling a little less traumatized today. Praying more. Glad that I went from hermit to social butterfly over the past year, I now have many contacts. I just have to take it one day at a time. (Only I'm such an obsessor it's more like one HOUR at a time.)

Immediate goals ... freelance (working on it constantly) and enough money set aside to rent a Uhaul to head back up north if I have to.

I pray that day never comes. And I pray for coworkers and others who suddenly find themselves in the same boat. And I can't imagine what it feels like to be one of the people who is still looking for work after losing their job a year ago.

Namaste.

What fresh hell is this?

This is my friend DeeDee on Good Randy's amazing deckboat. Last summer sometime I think it was.

Tomorrow, I think I'm going to be exactly where she is in this photo. Probably no booze. It's a depressant and I don't need any of that right now.

You see, Friday I was called into the President's office (not Obama, I'm talking the King of my little salaried world) and I was told their having a "writer" was a luxury they could no longer afford.

To be honest, I don't know how they can afford to bop me back to contract. I don't think they have any idea how much work gets blasted at me every day. I have a sign next to my to-do-board. "Do you want fries with that?!"

In any given day I will do a few eBlasts, a few radio scripts, a few TV scripts, a coupla print ads and assorted other weirdness. You throw in a proposal and a phone interview with subsequent article and my brain goes through so many gears it comes out the consistency of grits. This will fry his.

Well, we'll see how it goes. Maybe I will be just as well off as a contract employee, with the bonus of working from home. Or maybe they will bust butt to do it all themselves and I'll have to see if Publix needs baggers.

The girls were besides themselves. They know I hate boob hugs and I was seated and damned if two of them didn't corner me behind my desk and I had a head/boob hug from Carrie & Kamla. Assholes.

I cried. Ice Queen Summer cried.

Carrie seems to think I have nothing to worry about and Kamla just wants me to hurry and finish her business cards. She texted me five times today ... how are you? You need to (insert something disgustingly cutesy like pray or count kittens).

How long will it take to get my business cards?

She needs them for Fashion Week in Miami.

Thank God my family does not read this blog, they would (will) shit. So I have to have my life straightened out before I let them know what happened. Need to have more work lined up so I can say "don't worry, nothing changes. I'm fine. In fact, I have more freedom!"

They will worry themselves sick, especially my son. Who has enough to worry about with a wife and two little girls up in Michigan. One friend has already offered me a job marketing a new product - and a place to stay up in Michigan. I would rather poke my eyes out with cocktail forks before I'd consider moving back. Yes, anything freelance. Anything that requires going back to hell? I think not.

My apologies to you who still live there and love those three precious months of decent weather every year. God bless ya, you are DELUDED. If you had experienced the incredible night we had under the stars tonight, you would rethink.

So anyway, can't stay home at night right now, too lonely, too bummed out. Good Randy reminded me tonight that it hasn't even been two days, I need to let it sink in and settle. He says I need a boat day tomorrow.

The radiation is affecting his throat, he's getting weak and he can't talk. He said "If I died today, I will have lived a good life." Hate to even think about that.

Went out with Donna last night, hit the usual spots ... always wind up back at the Lighthouse Tiki Bar, which is getting more and more difficult as my stalker appears to be there every time we are. WTF. It was a good time until then. We thought he left at one point, when I saw his Eye-gor creepy hunched buddy make the rounds. Sure enough, Stalker came around 5 minutes later.

One of management's friends said "that shit don't fly in here. We have ways of taking care of that." People have started circling me as he approaches. Word's out.

Went to yoga today. Sondra asked how I was and I told her I lost my job. I was somber in yoga for the first time ever. At the end she read the traditional closing meditation and dedicated it to me and I cried and nobody could look at me. I got a lot of hugs.

Then I went back out tonight ... nice night, rose above, was on the verge of having a decent time. Landed back at the usual place with the usual suspects. I was introduced around Good Randy's table and we had to explain the "Good Randy" thing.

His friend Peggy said "if he's GOOD Randy I'd hate to meet EVIL Randy." I had to correct her. "No - BAD Randy. E-VIL Randy has too many syllables."

Peg is cool, she and her husband live on their boat half the year. It's a big comfort being with people from The Homeland who ALSO would rather die than go back. Everywhere I turned, someone from Michigan saying I WILL NEVER GO BACK.

Was talking to a hunky friend when ... ok, I'll call her Shirley for this ... walked up behind us both and planted her left boob in the back of my right shoulder. It's not much of a boob, but it was firmly pressed. When she walked away, I asked him if she had pressed her right boob into him. And he said yeah.

I said "I think that means she likes you."

Like when DoDo the cockatoo at Skunk Ape gacked up food to feed me. Only DoDo is a little more discreet.

Later I was sitting at a table with Good Randy and other new friends when we all spotted my stalker again. And his Eye-gor person who acts as sonar scouring the area for me. This is getting too creepy for words. At least he stopped calling. And with his balance issues, I know I could outrun him. I never park in the same place twice any more.

Well, maybe tomorrow I'll be where DeeDee is in this photo. And maybe I won't feel like a piece of shit for not being in a position to give Good Randy money for all the gas he spends taking friends around the bays and the gulf.

He and the gang are happy my job will no longer interfere with their social lives; they can invite me to hang day and night.

Look at this ... 1:17 a.m. I am already shifting into freelance mode, living a bat life of up all night, asleep til 10.

If I can sleep.

Full Moon Drum Circle … and The Stalker

I attended one drum circle in downtown Fort Myers many months ago and loved the mix of ages and types. Old hippies, plump young belly dancers … people dancing, swaying, drumming to rhythmic animal beats that return us to our primal selves.

So when my friend Sherma invited me to go to a drum circle on Fort Myers Beach last night, I was game. Some of our other friends would be there too.

A year ago “while trolling” we accidentally fell in with a group of people from my area of Michigan.

These are great, great people - Good Randy (with me in this photo - jeez, nice gum) and his buddies, Terry the classic car collector, fun people and the fun people they meet along the way.

DeeDee from Rhode Island, and others.

The group is constantly growing. Sherma became a fixed member of that circle while I have been on the outskirts. Despite the fact that seeing them always feels like old home week.

Sherma was about an hour late for the drum circle, but that was OK. I had a wonderful latte and it was a gorgeous night.

When she DID show up, she said “this is for you!” It was a packet of professional photos.

She said “I wasn’t supposed to give this to you unless I called him first to tell him where you are.” ???!!!

I said “GOD no, he’s my stalker. Please tell him nothing.”

He seemed nice enough when we met. I have such a soft spot for people who have been through the mill mentally, emotionally or physically.

I was at the Tiki Bar with Donna a few weeks back, standing inside talking to friends when I noticed an attractive guy pick up a barstool (with some difficulty) and walk all around our area to deliver it at my side. He said "I wanted you to be able to sit."

So I sat.

Within a few moments he had blurted out his saga of brain tumors and subsequent surgeries, how he was mostly OK now except for some “holes”.

Had I gone the shrink route years back, I was thinking of getting involved in closed head injury patients – those people whose lives can change in the blink of an eye due to a car accident, fall or other circumstance. My heart absolutely goes out to them.

I was very nice to him; Donna was upset, had a bad vibe and tried to warn me off. I was doing nothing more than being kind.

He was/is a professional photographer and … well, I know they are mostly nuts. All creative people are nuts. Writers are hermity nuts, designers are ego nuts, photographers run the gamut from sexual predators to the biggest egos of all. Think about all the gorgeous models who have fallen for the toads behind cameras. They do have an aura … well, no wonder. A great photographer can make you immortal.

Anyway, this one acted like an abandoned puppy. He watched me from the sidelines and begged me not to leave til I said good-bye.

That was Night of the Shriners and there was no shortage of guys who wanted to dance. And I was in the mood to dance. One looked like Newman from Seinfeld with all the trappings of success. He stood 3’ away and stared at me. He breathed creepy when we danced.

Another group consisted of one hunky, funny brother and five hilarious sisters from Buffalo – they were awesome. Donna and I hung with them and laughed our asses off.

When the photographer did manage to catch me for a dance, I noticed I had to help him balance as he moved.

He’s originally from Michigan, so I introduced him to my friends. Gave him my number to be polite … and at the end … after he had waited about 3 hours for me to say my good-bye – he had a rose waiting for me. All very sweet.

Until the next day when the calls started coming in. He said he had written a letter but didn’t have my address. I didn’t offer one. He texted. After about 8 contacts in two hours I told him he had to stop calling.

I said I was very much in love with someone.

The calls stopped for about two hours, then came the text “but I thought we had something special.” Now I know how guys feel. I finally saved his phone number as “Stalker” and never answered again.

Meanwhile he has been working my circle of friends at the beach. I pulled the photos out of the envelope and … although they’re really good, I am clearly apprehensive of the person who’s taking them.

(The photo of me with Good Randy shown here was that same night.)

After 3 hours in the drum circle - with people playing everything from expensive drums and guitars to shoe boxes and wooden spoons - I headed back to the Tiki Bar to say goodbye to my Michigan friends. We laughed about the photographer. They have a soft spot in their hearts for him already.

But I think they know enough to keep me out of that loop.

Lessons learned … Drum circles; really cool.

Desperately lonely people; a little scary.

Blogless in South Fort Myers

Yeah, I know - I've used Dr. Phil twice now.

So sue me.

Listen to the grinding sound of rose colored glasses being ground into the concrete by Skecher flip flops ...

Where have I been these past coupla months?

Living Large in Stupidville (population "me") after a year of monastic existence on the path to healing and enlightenment.

So we come to that old fable of the turtle and the scorpion.

The scorpion needs a ride across the river so he asks the turtle for help.

Turtle says "but you'll sting me and we'll both drown!" Scorpion says that scenario defies logic, he would never do anything that would cause his own destruction.

Halfway across ... sure enough. Stings the turtle in the neck and as they both begin to die, the turtle asks why.

Scorpion responds "It's my nature."

Snopes says the meaning is clear - some creatures cannot help what they are. "It matters not how gently they are treated, their innate nature will cause them to unleash grievous harm even upon those who have lavished loving kindness upon them."

Out of all the nice single guys out there who adore me, I let a Scorpion into my life.

The Dr. Phil poster ... I think I need to tape it to my mirror as a reminder every morning of how INCREDIBLY stupid I can be.